Monogatari Series - Volume 19 - Chapter 7.03

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While I guess it’d be an overstatement to call us bitter enemies brought together by fate, I couldn’t help but feel that we were a ragtag bunch─still, you could also call our group an all-star cast, considering how incredible its members were. The unavoidable incohesive feeling among us, though, must have come from something between us─the way our differences contrasted so poorly.

Shinobu Oshino─a perfected legendary vampire who had flown in from overseas.

Mayoi Hachikuji─a ghost who’d returned from hell.

Yotsugi Ononoki─a shikigami of a corpse doll whose master had absconded.

Izuko Gaen─an expert aberration exterminator, and the big boss of those in her field.

Then there was me, Koyomi Araragi, former human, former vampire, and current human─it was hard to tell whether our interests lined up with one another or not, or whether we all acted with the same purpose, so I guess if you took an objective look at us, we were nothing but a bunch of weirdos gathered in a park.

“Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten to put a barrier up. No outsiders will be able to enter. We’ve got this place to ourselves for the time being,” Miss Gaen said with cheer.

A barrier, huh… I’d gotten pretty used to hearing that word.

We all moved from the plaza to the benches.

Miss Gaen sat Ononoki on her lap.

Her expressionless face made it hard to tell, but Ononoki did seem a bit uncomfortable─I wasn’t sure whether or not dolls had feelings, but that feeling did come across to me.

As someone in a similar situation, sitting on the adult Shinobu’s lap, her arms around me.

I could find no excuse to reject this position as I’d regrettably done the same thing to Shinobu countless times in the past. Still, being held on an older woman’s lap when I was about to graduate high school did make me feel self-conscious, or embarrassed, or stop it Hachikuji I don’t want you looking at me like that.

Shinobu had wrapped her arms around my torso like it was the most natural thing to do in the world, holding me tight and making sure she didn’t drop me─her chin resting on top of my head.

Miss Gaen held Ononoki, Shinobu held me, and Hachikuji sat alone on the bench─there were only five of us, of course, so one would be left out by necessity if we formed two-person groups. I still wanted to place Hachikuji on the lap of my now-held body and hold her myself, but she may have been wary about that exact possibility, as she’d placed herself some distance away from me, in a position that my immobile self couldn’t reach as if to say she welcomed being left out.

We were a strange enough group to begin with, but our arrangement was bizarre as well. I could see why Miss Gaen put a barrier up, because someone could have very easily called the authorities on us at first glance otherwise.

“Okay, then. Now I’m going to disclose the plan I’ve spent yesterday and today painstakingly putting together to all of you─and I’d appreciate it if you do as I say, but I of course won’t force you to. There is something I want to check before that, though. Did you bring what I told you to bring, Koyomin?”

“I did. Still, this thing was yours to begin with, so I only wanted to return it to you… I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I want you to know that I didn’t bring this thing here because I agree with whatever it is you are thinking,” I said, taking out a long envelope and handing it to Miss Gaen─in fact, it was something I’d tried to rip up and throw away many times before, but couldn’t. I didn’t have the courage, and I doubt I had the skill.

Perhaps Shinobu could eat its contents, now that she was back to her full strength─but that too was a thought that inspired fear and trembling.

Because what the thing sealed.

Was─a god.

“Yes. That’s fine with me, Koyomin. What I’m expecting from you is one of your miracles that not even reason can explain,” the lady who knows everything said, as though she knew it all, and removed the contents of the envelope─a talisman.

A paper amulet with a snake drawn on it.

No plain amulet, as its effects had already been tested and proved─an all-powerful amulet that once took Nadeko Sengoku, an everyday middle schooler, and made her ascend into becoming a snake god.

A slip of paper entrusted to me by Miss Gaen immediately after the events following summer break. I’d failed to make full use of it.

It’d sound cooler if I said I didn’t use it out of choice, but in reality, I got cold feet and was too afraid to use it.

“Yes, indeed─it’s well preserved. It seems you took good care of it,” Miss Gaen said, slipping the removed ofuda right into her pocket. She handled it roughly─without care. I guess she wouldn’t be afraid of doing so as an expert, though… Wait, but shouldn’t she be paying more respect to it as an expert?

I just couldn’t understand her stance.

“Hmph,” Shinobu breathed.

As if she felt somewhat disgusted─she’d suffered because of that amulet back when she had a child’s body, and maybe she’d remembered those times.

Or so I thought, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

“Really─’twas exactly as thou saidst. In fact, how could I not have noticed? It did take place quite far in the past, of course─and I did not want to recall it, either,” she said, not making any sense to me.

It seemed that Hachikuji hadn’t been the only one to come to a deal with Miss Gaen while I was off on my date with Senjogahara─I couldn’t help but feel a little left out now.

So I was the one on the outside, not Hachikuji.

I wondered if Ononoki might be feeling the same way, but she remained expressionless, looking absentminded if anything.

Maybe she didn’t care either way.

“No need for ye to fret─’tis not as though I’ve heard everything myself. Merely the essentials─and I decided to wait until we met before hearing this expert’s detailed plans on what she will do next, in particular,” Shinobu said, as if she’d sensed my alienation─regardless of the fact that our physical and spiritual link had been severed.

“That’s right. And also, I was still piecing together my stratagems during the daytime, so I couldn’t talk about them even if I’d wanted to─I only finished planning just now after hearing about the situation from Hachikuji and Shinobu.”

I’m sorry to say I had trouble believing Miss Gaen─I even doubted whether this soon-to-be disclosed plan she’d spent yesterday and today putting together was even that.

At this point, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she said this had been her plan ever since August─but who was making me think something like that? Ogi?

Ogi Oshino.

“Ogi Oshino,” Miss Gaen began. “She is the enemy we will now face─the opponent we must fight. The target we must eliminate, and the object we must detest─right, Koyomin?”

“…”

Enemy. I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable when I heard her say the word out loud─I just couldn’t get the image of her as one of my juniors out of my head.

Regardless of what Tadatsuru said.

And─whatever she herself said.

“Ye seem unsurprised. Had ye known from the start, after all?” Shinobu said as she held me tight from behind, but sadly she was off the mark here─and giving me too much credit. I’d never once doubted Ogi.

But.

Just maybe, I had known.

I didn’t know anything.

But maybe I knew about Ogi.

I thought this as I felt Shinobu at my back.

“…”

Ononoki maintained her silence.

Maybe she knew her place, held there on the lap of the woman who was her owner’s senior, Miss Gaen, and was holding back…but that didn’t seem to be in Ononoki’s personality.

I could see her interrupting our conversation as she pleased wherever she was sitting, especially after all the influence the uninhibited characters who were my little sisters had on her.

“This is a very important point, though… We must not forget that the name Ogi Oshino is merely an expedient. The most haphazardly chosen of aliases─no, it wouldn’t be accurate to call it an alias, but something like a user ID selected in order to avoid being bound by a name.”

Bound by a name?

That was─something I’d heard before.

When Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade lost her existence as such─she had been given the new name of Shinobu Oshino, a name by which she was bound, or something. It did seem that this binding continued to be in effect even now that she’d regained her existence, though…

“You see, Ogi Oshino’s true essence is found in that unknowability─the lone trait we could say she has is the way she loses her own identity… Well, even she, the pronoun we’ve been using here, doesn’t have any true meaning to it.”

“You almost sound like you know Ogi, Miss Gaen, but you’ve never actually met her before, right?” I asked.

A question I’d been wanting to ask.

Considering the chain of events until this point─and considering what Ogi had told me, there shouldn’t have been any direct contact between the two.

Of course, as someone who knows everything, perhaps Miss Gaen should have been talking about Ogi in this way─but I couldn’t help but feel a little disgusted to hear her talk about someone I knew as though she knew her better than I did.

I admit the feeling was closer to jealousy than anything.

“I haven’t. Because she’s been avoiding me─or for a better way to put it, those kinds of beings don’t appear in front of people like me, who live their lives never digressing from their duty.”

“…?”

“But while I haven’t met her, it’s not as if I don’t know her─there are a lot of things I need to explain to you, Koyomin, this included, but why don’t we start from the beginning? We don’t have much time, and I’m only going to explain this once, so listen carefully.”

Having said this much, Miss Gaen pulled out a smallish tablet. It seemed that as usual, she’d be writing on it as she explained this plan or whatever it was.

I recalled what happened in August.

That’s when she told me about Shinobu’s first thrall at Kita-Shirahebi Shrine, right? But this lecture seemed like it would be even more complex, tricky, and grand.

“I’d like to make this discussion quick and head to our site asap. I do know that things rarely go as planned…but we do need to draw a line somewhere that we can make the standard.”

“There’s one thing I want to make sure of first. Or rather, something I want you to assure me of. Are you sure that Ogi is going to make her move tonight? No matter what kind of trap we set for Ogi, it won’t matter unless she does, right?”

“She will. I wouldn’t say I’m sure of it so much as it’s a fact─tonight is the only night. If she doesn’t move here, you could say that she isn’t her. Though that would take care of the threat,” Miss Gaen replied with confidence.

I didn’t understand her grounds for saying so, which is to say that she hadn’t told me anything essential at all, but her attitude was so commanding that I still didn’t feel like pushing any further─it made me think that Miss Gaen’s most outstanding feature wasn’t the amount of knowledge or information she possessed, but rather this self-confidence.

A self-assuredness that overpowered any possibility of argument.

It sat in contrast with her relaxed demeanor.

…While I did try asking her, I already felt certain of it myself─I had this unshakable confidence that Ogi would move today, March fourteenth.

After all.

That’s what she said she’d do.

Just now─before I came here, in front of the gate to the Araragi residence.

─Araragi-senpai.

─Could you side with me?

─Please save me.

“…”

“Hm? What’s the matter, Koyomin? You look worried─no need to get so worked up, it’s not like I’m going to talk about anything complicated. In fact, this ought to be an easy long passage for someone who just overcame his college entrance exams. I’m just trying to explain a convoluted situation in a clear way─I don’t know about saying that we’re checking each other’s answers here, but it’s like the reveal chapter of a mystery novel.”

The reveal chapter of a mystery novel.

If anything─that was Ogi’s role.

Or perhaps Tsubasa Hanekawa’s, but she wasn’t here─she didn’t make it here in time for the big reveal.

She was already quite the master detective, having pinned down Mèmè Oshino’s whereabouts─and perhaps the normal thing to do here would be to inform Miss Gaen of her junior’s possible discovery, but I hesitated to do so for some reason.

Because I might give her false hope─or so my excuse went, but actually, I concealed the fact because I was cautious of her.

Though it’s not like─I was trying to take Ogi’s side or anything.

“All right,” Miss Gaen said, then smiled.

The way a master detective would.

“Then why don’t we begin with the relationship between this park and Kita-Shirahebi Shrine. With the genesis of our current tragedy. The tragedy that befell Shirohebi Shrine, Kita-Shirahebi Shrine’s predecessor, four hundred years ago─”